The first six students enrolled in KU’s one-year “Preparatory Medical Course” begin classes on Mount Oread.

The Panorama of North American Mammals, a version of which is now located in the University of Kansas Natural History Museum in Dyche Hall, debuts as the centerpiece of the Kansas pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The new four-year KU School of Medicine begins its first day of classes with a faculty complement that includes several physician-educators with outstanding reputations.

The Junior Prom becomes the first formal event held in KU’s newly opened Robinson Gymnasium.

Carnegie Foundation researcher Abraham Flexner visits the KU School of Medicine, compiling data and making observations for his influential expose entitled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada."

KU senior Kenneth Pringle returns to Lawrence from his trip to Europe aboard Henry Ford’s “Peace Ship,” an idealistic but ultimately preposterous attempt to end World War I.

Shortly after the United States formally enters the First World War, KU Chancellor Frank Strong speaks on “Mobilization at the University” before the National Council of Defense in Washington, DC.

KU alum William Allen White, nationally renowned editor and publisher of the Emporia Gazette, pens his Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial in defense of free speech titled “To An Anxious Friend.”

A ceremony complete with military honor guard marks the laying of the cornerstone of the Kansas Memorial Union building.

Kansas Representative William H. Blount convenes a hearing in Topeka to investigate racial discrimination at the University of Kansas, with particular focus on the Medical School’s exclusionary practices that prevent African American students from completing medical degrees at KU.

In a vivid display of 1930s-era pacifism, 700 KU students gather in front of Fowler for a Student Strike Against War Committee protest rally, part of a global antiwar demonstration taking place on 140 campuses across the country and around the world.

Under pressure from civil rights leaders and Kansas Governor Walter Huxman, the Kansas Board of Regents votes to prohibit the de facto practices that had prevented African American students from completing their medical education at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

The KU School of Medicine drops its prohibition against marriage for nursing students.

The US Army’s 77th Evacuation Hospital Unit, composed of volunteer doctors and nurses primarily from the KU School of Medicine and its Bell Memorial Hospital, is officially activated for duty in World War II

The KU chapter of the Committee on Racial Equality (CORE) stages a sit-in at Brick’s Cafe in an attempt to force the owner to serve African-Americans.

The University of Kansas gains one of the world’s most impressive Irish political and literary collections when 11 tons of books, pamphlets, periodicals, and other items representing the bulk of Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty’s library arrive on Mount Oread.

The National League for Nursing grants full accreditation to KU's nursing baccalaureate degree program.

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Regional Medical Program Act into law, enabling the KU Department of Nursing to institute the first continuing education program in its history.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy launches his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination with twin speeches at K-State and KU.

Hippie activist Abbie Hoffman speaks at KU’s Allen Field House.

Former KU student Rick “Tiger” Dowdell, 19, is shot and killed by police in downtown Lawrence, sparking a week of protests, vandalism, and confrontations.

The Kansas Board of Regents approves establishment of a clinical training campus of the KU School of Medicine in Wichita.

A women’s advocacy group calling themselves the February Sisters occupy the East Asian Studies building in an effort to win concessions from the University.

Over 2,000 students and local residents pack KU’s Woodruff Auditorium for a special screening of The Day After, ABC’s controversial TV-movie filmed in Lawrence that depicts the effects of a nuclear holocaust on a typical American town.

Lightning strikes Hoch Auditorium, causing a fire that reduces the 64-year-old campus landmark to ruins in less than four hours.

KU dedicates the new Regents Center, the first building on the University’s Edwards Campus in Johnson County.

Richard “Dick” Wright, a music professor at KU, KANU radio personality and one of the two founders of KU’s Archive of Recorded Sound, passes away.